Subject: The British Film and Television
Committee Member: Lets just turn for a moment to culture, and really how the BBC defines culture. I mean if I were to start off with TS Elliot we would be brought straight into a religion sphere, which I see is in your description anyway, but I think that would be too narrow for our purposes at the moment, and yet interestingly in the written evidence that has been produced by the BBC, culture in any form of description was confined simply to music. So I wonder if you can help us by saying how broadly do you define culture within the BBC? And perhaps even more importantly, how you can evaluate the BBC's cultural impact, and that is in respect of entertainment, and also factual programming, your particular sphere, against the impact of other channels?
Mr George Entwistle, Controller of Knowledge Commissioning BBC: The definition of culture we work with within in my commissioning sphere falls, I would say, very largely into the arts and music territories. And I don't think you would be surprised by the kind of range of things that that would cover.
So to take some examples of the coming poetry season on BBC 2 and BBC 4, right at the heart of that, the Culture Show and the plans we have just announced for how we are going to alter and enhance that. Radio 1's Big Weekend, this last weekend, extensive coverage of popular music on Radio 1, but also on BBC 3. So a sort of very wide range of very accessible through to absolutely demanding; opera, T S Elliot. So not in any sense a kind of filter that it is hard to get cultural experience through, a broad filter, but a proper emphasis on the full range of experiences within that. Accessible experiences, very popular experiences, more demanding experiences properly elucidated. Could you explain your question on, how you mean the broader impact of the BBC approach to culture has on the UK as a whole? Is that what you mean?
Committee Member: Well I was looking at the other channels and how you yourself would access the role of and success of the BBC in its broadcasting and cultural terms alongside what other channels are able to do. And in fact that would lead you into answering the issue of prioritising of investment because, as we all know, some of the other chancels are now backing off. For example children's programming, indeed the BBC itself to a certain extent, there is a backing off religion programming in other channels. So how do you see the BBC in its cultural role vis-a-vis other channels?
Mr George Entwistle: Well the defining structure for everything we commission through Knowledge is something we call the Knowledge Strategy and at the heart of that is a stated and a clear commitment to a whole series of territories, the like of which you won't find from any other broadcaster. So the commissioning structure I have just reorganised is very much targeted at that.
We have a Science and Natural History Commissioner to make sure that are commitment to science coverage is something that is absolutely stated and understood, and that goes through to an Arts Commissioner, a Music Commissioner and all the other specific sub-genres within Knowledge all of which represent our exceptional public purposes and our exceptional commitment to those territories. Extending that genre perspective into the channels we are very very firmly of the view that, what you don't do with the arts, to take an example is, put it on a digital only channel environment and ask people who love it to find it.
We are committed absolutely to a broad approach to putting art on BBC 1, where it is important that we get it to large audiences, audiences over four hopefully as high as five million and that that is balanced with the kind of much more detailed and expert coverage of the arts we do on BBC 4. But every single one of our four channels has a distinct role in our mind, in terms of communicating information about the arts to our audiences.